caution.

Last night, our neighbor's apartment got broken into, and a laptop and X-box were stolen. This is two or three nights after we heard sirens going off, and then got a call from H. "Someone just ran by my window," he said. "Followed by two cops." I had been drinking tea and listening to music and looking at my atlas.

"Oh, right," T. placidly responded. "There've been policemen lining 53rd St. for a while now. Apparently something was going to go down today."

A few days ago, another friend's input: "Apparently during the party on Friday there were something like six gunshots on the next block."

Oh; yeah. We live on the South Side of Chicago.

Hyde Park is an interesting neighborhood, historically and presently. Sandwiched in between Kenwood on the north and Jackson Park on the south, it literally runs the gamut of millionaires with small princessy dogs to toughened street gangs. I've never been anywhere with as much economic and quality-of-life variation in one neighborhood. The most nervous I've gotten yet living here has been walking back from the 63rd Green Line stop at dusk, back when I lived in B-J on 60th Street. Conditions were not good--police surveillence lights blinked from the top of electric poles.

Alternatively, from 54th Street, I walk 4 blocks to the north to where A. babysits and feel like I'm in England, with the houses all set back in the lawns, with ornate brick & stone architecture and fountains on the front lawn. She points and says, "That's where Muhammad Ali lives. That's where Barack Obama lives... I think."

Things can be tense. Race relations are historically and famously poor. UChicago is a beautiful and gothic campus built beside blocks where people sleep in doorways. It's just... a lot, in one place.

I've rarely felt scared for my own safety. Hyde Park doesn't have the impact on me. I've walked back from the 6 past midnight, beside Nichols Park. There aren't really gangs of people standing around, looking shady. Granted, I always have at least one person with me, and we walk 53rd Street, where everything is located. Cops patrol the area. You'd have to be stupid to stand around and look shady.

Anyway. Things are much scarier a few blocks south & west of here. We live on the third floor, and we've got protective bars on our kitchen windows. It wouldn't be worth the time & energy.

..in other news, I realized a few days ago that if we'd taken the first apartment we looked at, we would have been neighbors with Barack Obama. Strange, awe-struck neighbors. We would have lived on the same block.